How it all began …

25-year-old Josef Houska founded a trading company under the name of “Oswald Gabriel, Pächter Urban und Houska” for exporting glass products. Six years later, colour entered the picture for the first time. Starting in 1956, his business model consisted of importing and trading colourants for the textile, leather and paper industries.

Josef Houska procured a plot of land in Vienna Siebenhirten as well as the first large-scale production machine. Thus the starting signal was given for the production of pigment chips and masterbatch. In untold numbers of experiments and test series with this machine, the company had the opportunity of building up its own in-house development department. A core team of highly qualified technicians and chemists, some of whom are still employed by the company today, acquired the knowledge needed – almost as autodidacts – and were able to implement the knowledge.